Kothagudem: Mid-day meal workers demand Cong Govt to clear salaries and bills overdue for eight months

Mid-day meal workers in the erstwhile Khammam district are facing severe financial distress due to delayed salaries and unpaid bills. Union leaders alleged removal of long-serving workers and demanded immediate clearance of dues, LPG supply and a hike in honorarium.

Kothagudem: The mid-day meal workers in the erstwhile Khammam district have been facing financial difficulties as the state government has delayed payment of their salaries.

According to Telangana Mid-Day Meal Scheme Workers’ Union (CITU) district president G Padma, salaries for the past eight months are pending, while bills have been pending for the past five months.

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Similarly, bills for eggs purchased over the past eight months are also overdue. Despite repeated requests to the concerned authorities, the salaries and bills have not been cleared. As a result, the workers have come under financial distress, she complained.

Speaking to Telangana Today, Padma noted that the government has removed mid-day meal workers who have been working for 25 years, citing a decrease in the number of students. She said it was not right for the government to remove mid-day meal workers.

She said the number of children in a village fluctuates, decreasing in one year and increasing in the next. She argued that it was unfair to reduce the number of workers when the number of children decreases and then rehire them when the number increases. She demanded that mid-day meal workers be continued as usual, regardless of the number of students.

The union district secretary Shaik Sultana stated that officials were threatening workers for cooking on firewood without supplying LPG cylinders. She said they were ready to cook on gas if the government supplied gas cylinders.

The union leaders also demanded that the government supply LPG cylinders to every school, provide cotton uniforms and extend ESI, PF, accident insurance, job security and identity cards to the workers.

Further, she said the Congress government had promised to increase the workers’ monthly honorarium from Rs 3,000 to Rs 10,000 and provide additional funds to meet the revised meal menu, but the promise was yet to be fulfilled. The government should immediately increase the honorarium to Rs 10,000, they demanded.